Environmentally sustainable food consumption : a review and research agenda from a goal-directed perspective

The challenge of convincing people to change their eating habits toward more environmentally sustainable food consumption (ESFC) patterns is becoming increasingly pressing. Food preferences, choices and eating habits are notoriously hard to change as they are a central aspect of people's lifestyles and their socio-cultural environment. Many people already hold positive attitudes toward sustainable food, but the notable gap between favorable attitudes and actual purchase and consumption of more sustainable food products remains to be bridged. The current work aims to (1) present a comprehensive theoretical framework for future research on ESFC, and (2) highlight behavioral solutions for environmental challenges in the food domain from an interdisciplinary perspective. First, starting from the premise that food consumption is deliberately or unintentionally directed at attaining goals, a goal-directed framework for understanding and influencing ESFC is built. To engage in goal-directed behavior, people typically go through a series of sequential steps. The proposed theoretical framework makes explicit the sequential steps or hurdles that need to be taken for consumers to engage in ESFC. Consumers need to positively value the environment, discern a discrepancy between the desired versus the actual state of the environment, opt for action to reduce the experienced discrepancy, intend to engage in behavior that is expected to bring them closer to the desired end state, and act in accordance with their intention. Second, a critical review of the literature on mechanisms that underlie and explain ESFC (or the lack thereof) in high-income countries is presented and integrated into the goal-directed framework. This contribution thus combines a top-down conceptualization with a bottom-up literature review; it identifies and discusses factors that might hold people back from ESFC and interventions that might promote ESFC; and it reveals knowledge gaps as well as insights on how to encourage both short- and long-term ESFC by confronting extant literature with the theoretical framework. Altogether, the analysis yields a set of 33 future research questions in the interdisciplinary food domain that deserve to be addressed with the aim of fostering ESFC in the short and long term

Environmental policy and food consumption : what do we learn from consumers' preferences?

Cette thèse étudie les comportements des consommateurs vis-à-vis de l’environnement à travers des choix alimentaires, afin de déterminer des politiques les plus adaptées pour limiter l’impact du système alimentaire sur l’environnement. Elle est constituée de quatre articles qui étudient les valorisations monétaires des caractéristiques environnementales par les consommateurs, et les choix d’instruments de politique publique qui en résultent.Le premier chapitre, à l’aide d’une revue de la littérature, montre que la prolifération des écolabels et la complexité des informations environnementales entravent les capacités de ces écolabels à influencer les comportements des consommateurs.Les mécanismes de taxes et de subventions apparaissent alors comme une solution alternative qui est étudiée dans cette thèse en intégrant des résultats expérimentaux. La suite de la thèse s’intéresse donc aux résultats expérimentaux concernant la révélation de messages environnementaux et à la valorisation monétaire de différents produits laitiers. Ces résultats expérimentaux liés à des produits laitiers sont utilisés par calculer une taxe et une subvention maximisant le bien-être des consommateurs.Le deuxième article étudie comment les messages environnementaux influencent les préférences des consommateurs, en utilisant une expérience de choix multiple en ligne et une expérience en laboratoire. Ces deux expériences montrent une relative stabilité des préférences, quand il s’agit de la diminution significative des dispositions à payer pour le produit standard faisant suite à la révélation d’information sur les conséquences environnementales des produits.Le troisième article s’intéresse à deux expériences de laboratoire quand le nombre de produits proposés varie. La deuxième expérience intègre des nouveaux produits garantissant un partage équitable des prix dans la filière de production laitière. Il est montré que les valorisations monétaires des critères environnementaux sont dominées par des valorisations plus élevées pour la santé ou pour des critères sociaux de partage équitable de la valeur dans la filière de production.Le quatrième article utilise les préférences révélées dans une des expériences précédentes autour des produits laitiers pour calculer une taxe et une subvention maximisant le bien-être des consommateurs. Les niveaux de taxation estimés avec nos travaux sont nettement supérieurs à ceux qui pourraient être préconisés en utilisant les valeurs monétaires du carbone conseillés par le Groupe d'experts intergouvernemental sur l'évolution du climat - GIEC (également appelé Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - IPCC).Ces quatre articles contribuent à quantifier des options de politiques publiques appliquées à un type de produit spécifique, et en tenant compte des mécanismes de marché.This Ph.D. dissertation focuses on consumers’ behavior towards the environment through food choices, to determine the most appropriate policies to limit the impact of the food system on the environment. This dissertation consists of four articles that study the monetary valuation of environmental characteristics by consumers, and the choices of public policy instruments related to these valuations.The first article, through a review of the literature, shows that the proliferation of eco-labels and the complexity of environmental information impede the ability of these eco-labels to influence consumers’ behaviors.In this context, the tax and subsidy mechanisms appear as an alternative solution which is studied in this dissertation by integrating experimental results. The rest of this dissertation examines the experimental results concerning the revelation of environmental messages and the monetary valuation of different dairy products. These experimental results related to dairy products are used to calculate taxes and subsidies that maximize consumers’ welfare.The second article studies how environmental messages influence consumer preferences, using an online choice experiment and a lab experiment. These two experiences show relative stability of preferences, especially when it comes to the significant decrease in the willingness to pay for the basic product, following the disclosure of information on the environmental consequences of the products.The third article focuses on two laboratory experiments when the number of offered products varies. The second experiment incorporates new products guaranteeing an equitable price sharing in the dairy production chain. It is shown that the monetary valuations for environmental criteria are dominated by higher valuation for health or for social criteria regarding the fair sharing of the value in the production chain.The fourth article uses the preferences revealed in one of the previous experiments around dairy products to calculate taxes and subsidies that maximize the consumers’ welfare. The levels of taxation estimated with our work are significantly higher than those that could be estimated by using the carbon prices advised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).These four articles help to quantify public policy options applied to a specific type of product, and by taking into account market mechanisms

A Tax Coming from the IPCC Carbon Prices Cannot Change Consumption: Evidence from an Experiment

This article compares a socially-optimal tax coming from a model integrating consumers’ preferences for various milks, with a tax directly computed from carbon emissions of milks with carbon prices given by the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). Regarding consumers’ preferences, we conducted an experiment in France for finding consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for different bottles coming from either cow’s milk or soy milk, under a regular or an organic process of production. This experiment shows higher WTPs for organic bottles than for regular bottles, and higher WTPs for soy milk than for cow’s milk. These WTPs were introduced into a model estimating the effects of regulatory instruments. From this model using WTPs, it was shown that, for milk coming from cows and soy, a tax on regular bottles and a subsidy on organic bottles maximized the consumers’ welfare. This tax on regular bottles was stronger than the tax that was alternatively estimated with the emissions and IPCC carbon prices. Indeed, a tax based on the IPCC carbon prices seemed too weak for efficiently changing the consumption towards sustainable products

A Review of Eco-labels and their Economic Impact

In many countries, various eco-labels have emerged for informing consumers about the environmental impact of the offered products. Using recent advances in the empirical and theoretical literature, this review questions the efficiency of eco-labeling. We combine a literature review with discussions of empirical examples. We underline the limitations of eco-labels for signaling credible information to consumers. In particular, both the complexity and the proliferation of eco-labels are likely to hamper their efficiency in guiding consumers. From a regulatory perspective, several studies show that eco-labels are useful, but they cannot be considered a panacea for improving environmental quality. Indeed, it is often socially optimal to combine eco-labels with other regulatory tools such as standards banning polluting products and tax/subsidy mechanisms depending on the environmental quality. The conclusion suggests research priorities for tackling unanswered questionsCet article s'intéresse à l'efficacité et aux limites des écolabels, en se basant sur des études empiriques et théoriques. Du point de vue de la régulation, les écolabels sont utiles, mais ne suffisent pas à limiter l'impact environnemental des biens et services. Il est souvent plus optimal socialement de combiner les écolabels avec d'autres instruments régulatoires comme les normes, les taxes ou les subventions